


Leniency

by GalaxyAqua



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode
Genre: All that stuff, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, camp outs and scavenging, in that slot of time when the kids are struggling to survive in Towa basically, monokuma attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 03:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyAqua/pseuds/GalaxyAqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nowadays, he spoils you, and you know it. Everyone knows it. The worst part is simply that he keeps giving, and you have no idea how to give back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leniency

**Author's Note:**

> oh good gosh, I'm doing it again, I said I /wouldn't/ but here I am, here I am. doing it again. alrightttttt I promise I'll get back on track after this stupid fic. 2nd person again, because it's the easiest way for me to write atm! stress reliever again, I'm sorry I'm so wound up all the time uughh ;;

Nagisa spoils you way too much.

You know this already, it’s obvious! It’s so obvious that even Kotoko snickers about it sometimes – releasing her glee with sunny peals of laughter and cheers of something overly embarrassing and misleading like, “aww! Look at how special you are to him!” – and you feel your face burning bright red, telling her it’s not _only you_ that he spoils, even though you know that’s a lie. It’s really much too obvious. The only other person he’s ever spoilt, by your biggest most outlandish guess (which isn’t a guess at all because it’s true), would have had to have been Monaka.

In any case, it’s not something big, when you look at it all in perspective, but it’s something you’re not accustomed to – especially now that you’re aware of it. You’re used to being the one that’s ignored, or bullied, or hated. Attention was never given to you, so after a while, you simply gave up on seeking it. Kinda gave up, anyway. You didn’t think about it much. Pushed it down, forgot it all in the haze of wanting to be hated. Pushed it out of your peaceful frame of mind. You didn’t want to think about it. Not until now.

Maybe you’ve left it too late though, because now you have no idea what to do.

On the one hand, you’ve always been sort of clingy when it comes to Nagisa – you’ll admit it, really, there’s no denying that fact even if you tried – and in the past, he has simply just allowed it; unless it was a super grouchy day, in which he would then shrug you off and leave. No harm done. Yet on the other hand, you’ve always been clingy for a _reason_ (or at least you think that there’s always been a reason), and now, when you’ve realized that it goes both ways, you’re stumped trying to think of what kind of reason Nagisa has; to dote on you the way that he does.

It’s not fair.

He’s taller than you, so he can get things for you off higher places. He’s tall enough to rest his chin on your head now, and he can read a lot faster than you too, so he can always summarize the books you can’t be bothered reading so that you get the story without all the effort.

He doesn’t comment anymore when you latch onto his arm – sometimes you hold his hand, but it means nothing like what Kotoko says! Really, it’s just a comfort thing! – and you’ve probably fallen asleep on him countless times already; Masaru tells you with a grin that he’s seen Nagisa carry you back to your chosen sleeping spot on more than one occasion, and you wonder if it’s too out of the blue to just start thanking Nagisa out of nowhere.

Well, it’s not like you’re really heavy or anything, but that’s beside the point.  

He’s doing too much for you.

He’s making you too happy.

You’re starting to think that he’s perhaps evolving into a different species of Nagisa, and maybe that’s why he’s treating you so well. You already thought it was weird that Kotoko and Masaru started being nice to you after the whole ‘Monaka’s betrayal’ spectacle, but this brings ‘nice’ to a whole new level.

You can’t keep up.

You can’t keep up with the way he offers you his jacket when you’re cold, or the way he lets you ramble to him far beyond the midnight hours – until you’re both sleepy and exhausted, and he still has enough energy to wrap you in a blanket and whisper, “good night”.

You can’t keep up with the way he slows down when Masaru and Kotoko are steaming ahead, just so you won’t get left behind, and you can’t keep up with the way he always stands in front of you even when you’re all being ambushed; the way he tries to protect you even though he’s so scared that you can see his limbs shaking.

You can’t keep up with the way he scolds the others so harshly, but can never direct the same harshness towards you – yes, you do a few things that rile him up, and yes, he gets frustrated, but at the end of the day, he’s always ready to forgive you and it’s just not fair.

The worst part is simply that he keeps giving, and you have no idea how to give back.

You tried mentioning it to him once, because honesty is a virtue, and because you deserve to know why; “why are you doing so much for me? It doesn’t make sense… for someone like me… y’know, the lowest, filthiest –”

You can’t even finish your sentence when he shakes his head, and frowns. “Jataro. There doesn’t always have to be a reason to do something.” He says, and to you, that makes the least amount of sense out of anything he’s ever said. “Besides,” his blue eyes shimmer a little under the light of day, and you don’t know why but you stare. “It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. You’re my friend, and thus I should treat you as such.”

Your second problem, you suppose, is that you don’t _deserve_ any of this.

He says ‘not a big deal’, and he says ‘nothing special’ – flinging around words like that as if it means very little to him, but it means the world to you and you hate that. You hate how you cling so tightly to his arm like he’s going to abandon you at any given moment, how you tug hard on his sleeve and latch onto his shoulder, and how your heartbeat often thunders to the point of you wanting to scratch at it and scream at it to stop, but you hate, hate, hate that he thinks you deserve his attention when you clearly do not.

But you’re pathetic, and can’t stop wanting it.

You’re a selfish kid, you’ve always known that – your mother used to say all the time, ‘Jataro, you’re so selfish’ or ‘Jataro, you don’t care about anyone but yourself’ or ‘I wish I had never given birth to such a self-centered child. You’ve taken all my dreams away from me’.

You’re still such a selfish kid.

You can’t stop wanting what you don’t deserve, and Nagisa won’t stop giving it to you.

It’s not fair, it’s really just not fair.

You don’t mean to bring it up in conversation (another selfish part of you is that you always seem to just speak your mind whenever), but it accidentally comes out of your mouth when you’re scavenging with Kotoko, and you ask her, “How do you… stop yourself from wanting something?”

Of course, that’s not all you ask. You ramble on, with real-life examples of this and that, and a whole lot of topic-jumping – at one point, you ask Kotoko if she’s wearing makeup and if she is, does she know that some makeup contains coal tar so she should be careful (to which Kotoko smacks you upside the head and tells you to get to the point) – but she doesn’t laugh at you like you think she will, when you finally ask again but in the vaguest way possible, “Do you know how to… stop?”

“It’s a whole lot more complicated than that,” she answers breezily, skipping along the low concrete wall as she looks for something the four of you can use for supplies. Her skirt flutters in the wind, because she’s so careless and hyperactive all at the same time, so you pointedly look away. “If you want something, why don’t you just go get it, though?” She scrunches her nose up. “If you want it so badly, it’s not like it’s going to run away from you forever!”

“But I don’t want to want it.” You insist, and she lets out a big sigh.

“You’ve gotta give in to your urges sometimes!” Waving her arms about, she stops, and jumps off the end of the wall. “I give into my urges all the time, and it doesn’t feel so bad once you’ve got it! In fact, it feels so good! To get what you want all day, every day, isn’t that living like royalty?! Ahh! I want a life like that, too!”

“It’s not like I can just give in…”

“Why not?” Having spotted something in the distance, Kotoko squeals happily and dashes forward; so quickly that you have to run to keep up with her. You enter a building huffing, and wipe sweat from your forehead with your sleeve.

“I … don’t… deserve…”

“… silly, silly, Jataro!” Kotoko interrupts you, in the midst of tearing into the shelf of the run-down convenience store – pulling down a shelf of cookies and sweets (because it’s Kotoko, and naturally those are her first choices even in a survival situation). “Stop thinking so hard and live a little! Isn’t that what being a kid should be?! Want, want, want, take, take, take! Just do it! Nobody’s around to stop you… not those nasty Demons, not that traitor Monaka, not anybody!”

“I can’t just…”

“Yes, you can!” Kotoko shoves a basket into your arms, and starts loading it up with a whole bunch of immensely sweet items. You’re impartial – you don’t mind eating sweets every day, if you’re perfectly honest – but you know that Nagisa and Masaru are going to definitely blow up at you both if this is all you scavenged, so you help sneak in a cereal box and a few sports drinks to appease them. It doesn’t get past Kotoko, but she leaves it be, hammering on her chest and shouting, “You can do anything, because you’ve got me, and Nagisa and Masaru on your side!”

Then she calms almost immediately and smiles, “How was that? Total anime protagonist-sounding or what?”

“It was… great.” You smile back, food items piled so high they cover your face, but the sentiment is there and Kotoko giggles.

“Why thank you!”

You wonder if your stomach feels light because you’ve levelled up.

That night, you learn that something called ‘giving back’, in fact, does exist. It’s not much, but you’re trying your hardest – harder than you’ve ever tried for anyone before – because Nagisa bursts into tears and you catch him before he hits the ground. You stumble a little, but you catch him.

It suddenly occurs to you that you’ve never seen Nagisa cry before.

The reason behind it all, you figure, is that when Nagisa had gone scavenging with Masaru – the same time that you had been out with Kotoko – the redhead had somehow gotten mauled and slashed by a Monokuma. Not dead, thankfully, he had had enough fire to punch the Monokuma in the eye before he’d been knocked out; but he had not woken up since Nagisa carried him back to your makeshift base, running with all his non-athletic might. Nagisa shouldered the blame all on his own.  

He mumbles something incoherent into your shoulder as he cries, but you catch the words ‘worthless’ and ‘failure’, so you hug him just a little bit tighter, and watch as Kotoko wraps Masaru’s arm in bandages, and then his chest, and torso, exchanging a worried look with you, as you continue to pat Nagisa on the head and nuzzle into his neck.

“It’s not your fault, you know.” You try to say, but he won’t listen to you.

“I shouldn’t have let him run ahead without me,” he says. “I should’ve been looking out for him. I should’ve scouted the area first.”

“He doesn’t blame you.” You say, because you know Masaru wouldn’t blame Nagisa for something like that. Masaru would blame the world, the sky, the dumb-looking clouds, the seven seas, the flowers, Monaka, Komaru Naegi and all the Monokuma in the world before he would ever think of blaming Nagisa – and even then, the blame would only fall on him having not let Masaru eat ice cream for breakfast, or something silly like that.

“You don’t know that.” He replies, and though his sobs are finally easing up, you can still feel him tense in your hold.

“Well, I…  know that you know – and you do know, by the way – and that Kotoko knows,” You’re glad to hear a hum of agreement from the girl, as she starts packing up the first aid kit, “that Masaru would not blame you for any of this.”

“He expected me to be there for him.”

“So, what?” You jostle him, just to make sure that Nagisa’s still functioning properly. “You were there for him! Who else would’ve brought him all the way back here? You’re not a miracle worker, you’re just Nagisa, and that’s okay. It’s okay, alright?” He’s still leaning on you, so you jostle him again. “You … you did your best. That’s all that matters.”

“Thank you.” He whispers, so soft you could barely catch it.

You don’t reply, but you sit him down against the wall, and help Kotoko with mopping the blood off the floor; exchanging hushed words all the while – “Is Nagisa gonna be okay?” she asks, “I hope so,” you reply, “What about Masaru?”, “I hope so too,” Kotoko answers, and for now, that is enough.

When Masaru finally wakes up again, you don’t think he’s ever been so shocked in his life.

All three of you simultaneously turn towards him as if someone had just announced that the world was going to explode in ten seconds, and that exact amount of time is all it takes for you, Nagisa and Kotoko to surround him and beleaguer him with questions.  

“I’m fine!” He ends up shouting, launching himself to his feet and running away from Kotoko who shrieks and chases him with more rolls of bandages, painkillers, the like – but the look – the look on Nagisa’s face distracts you, so you don’t see where they end up when you’re left by yourselves.

He looks both relieved and regretful when you approach him.

“See? Everything turned out fine in the end,” you begin, a small smile lingering on your face. “Don’t worry so much! Worrying is not a kid’s job, after all!”

“Sorry you had to see me like that.” He responds, and you immediately flash back to when he was hugging you, tears leaking from his eyes like a faucet.

“N-nah,” You try and reassure him, but it feels like there’s a frog in your throat. You never want to see him cry ever again. “Ooooh, it’s fine. As I said, you worry too much, Nagisa! ”

“Someone’s got to take responsibility around here,” he says lightly, and you chuckle, leaning over to attach yourself to his arm.

“Okey dokey, whatever you say. It’s fine if you’re fine. That’s it! I think. That’s it, right? You’re Nagisa though, so of course it’s fine. Maybe you even like responsibility, and that’s just odd. Not that you could get any odder than me, so don’t worry about it… ah! I just said ‘don’t worry’ about it, even though you weren’t even worried! Is that bad?”

He smiles, for the first time in the longest while, and your heart keeps beating erratically behind your ribcage, your breath feeling so heavy that you have to swallow a few times to get it down.

Without any knack for foresight, you fail to realize that your initial problem is about to get a whole lot worse.

You want him to spoil you. You want him to look at you when you’re speaking, to take your hand when you’re walking together, to hold you close when you’re cold. You want him to talk you to sleep, to watch the stars with you when you’re restless, to compliment you when you’ve done a good job, to laugh at your jokes, to rest his chin on your head, or his head on your shoulder, to get mad at you when you eat too much ice-cream, but take care of you when you get sick from it.

You want so much from him, and he’s so willing to give.

In a way, it kind of hurts.

“What can I do for _you_?” You ask him, straight out of nowhere, when you’re scavenging together because he can’t work alone with Masaru without his stupid worry eating at him even though Masaru has told him a billion times that the new scar isn’t his fault.

(That’s not to say that his concern doesn’t extend towards you – for the difference lies in that you stick to Nagisa like glue, whilst Masaru is almost forever ten steps ahead.)

“What do you mean by that?” He leafs through a brochure that smacked conveniently into his leg, and doesn’t look up to face you just yet.

“I want … I want to make you happy,” you say awkwardly, when Nagisa meets you with a blank look, and you gesture with your sleeves trying to desperately explain something even you don’t fully understand. “You know how you always look out for me, and all that stuff that you do – even if you don’t even notice it, but you do it anyway…?”

He seems to sort of comprehend what you’re saying, as a thoughtful expression blooms on his face. You take it as encouragement to continue.

“I just,” you look up, down, left and right, trying to find the words. “Want to do the same for you! Tell me what I can do. I’ll do it! Or at least, I probably will. It depends. But I’ll do it!”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he remarks with a tone of amusement. It’s almost unlike him, but at the same time, it brings you a sense of comfort. He clears his throat, and follows up with saying, “Just be yourself.”  

“That’s the opposite of what I wanna do!” You say, because it’s true. Being yourself means being that person that nobody likes, that selfish kid who doesn’t know how to do anything for anyone, that annoying child who lives to make others miserable. You don’t want to be yourself.

He’s spoiling you, even now.

“Why is that?” Nagisa stops in his tracks, and looks you directly in the eye. “You know there’s nothing wrong with you. We all like you plenty for who you are.”

That’s not what you wanted to hear. “How can you say something like that?! What kind of mad, delusional, screwed up person would like someone like me, anyway? I’ve always been the hated one, the unloved one. Stop lying to me!”

“Jataro Kemuri, look at me, and tell me that I’m wrong.”

You look up immediately, not even noticing that you’d started avoiding his gaze when you were speaking. “I-I’m … no, wait, you’re wrong. You’re definitely wrong.”

He looks annoyed, but doesn’t say anything more on the subject. “Fine. Let’s keep going then.”

And when he shrugs you off after you try and take his sleeve, you know you’ve made a mistake.

You don’t apologize to him, even later. You didn’t do anything wrong necessarily – all you did was say what you usually do, maybe with a little added vigor – so you didn’t see the point in it. But Masaru, surprisingly since he was never the sharp one, picks up on it.

“Did you and Nagisa have a fight?” He goes, seeking you out when Kotoko’s busy bothering Nagisa about her right to carry around her share of supplies in a bunny rabbit backpack.

“No!” You say almost immediately. Masaru raises his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Hey, whoa, don’t bite my head off,” he grins, “It’s just rare to see trouble in paradise! As your great leader, I’m always ready to help, so don’t be afraid to talk to me if you need.”

“We’re not fighting,” you mumble, shuffling your feet, wanting an excuse to leave so you didn’t accidentally spill it all out. “Just … getting some space…”

“Ha!” Masaru laughs, and you step on his foot. “You? Space? You’ve never heard of ‘space’ in your life! Always hanging off Nagisa like a leech… no wonder he finally got sick of you. Not in a bad way, of course! Everybody needs their space! I was wondering when he’d get tired of it, but wow, this was unexpected… or could it be? You’re the one who wants space?”

You step on his foot again, and start to storm off, not in the mood to argue about it with Masaru, when you could barely figure it out yourself. You can hear him yelling, “Oi! Sorry, I didn’t really mean that! I was just joking… did I get it right by accident? Man, I’m good – I mean, wait! Jataro, come back!”

You’re behind a wall, but you hear a few minutes later, Kotoko serving justice by demanding that if Masaru is going to be insensitive, then he should at least keep his voice down, because he’s now caused more damage than before, and he really should be taught a lesson. She doesn’t hit him – Jataro doesn’t wish that she did, because that would be a terrible thing to do no matter what Masaru has said or done – but when he next re-emerges, Masaru says, “Sorry, sorry. I hope you guys make up soon. It was really just a joke. I’m sorry.”

And he’s forgiven for his trouble.

When you next encounter Nagisa, he’s sitting outside, watching a tiny huddle of birds peck at a slice of bread. You sit yourself next to him, and he wordlessly moves to let you, but this time when you lean on his shoulder, he doesn’t shrug you off or push you away.

“Are you okay?” You ask, more to ease into conversation than anything. He looks okay, he really does, and you feel a little stupid for asking – small talk was never quite your thing.

“I’m fine,” he sighs.

You sit in silence for another few moments, before you ask the question that you had asked him earlier, just for curiosity’s sake. “Is there really nothing I can do for you?”

“It’s not…” you hear him swallow, the movement close as you rest your head by the side of his neck. “It’s not as if there’s nothing you can do. There’s just little more. You’ve done enough already.”

You don’t agree, but you certainly aren’t in the mood to start protesting again. Instead, you pick up on the tiniest thing, and ask, “More? Like… what? What do you mean? Can I do something more for you?”

In the dim light, you wonder if he reddens, or if it’s just your mind playing tricks on you.

“It’s nothing,” he tells you. “As I said before, it’s best if you can just be yourself.”

“That’s really all?”

“That’s really all.”

You grit your teeth, just the smallest thing, because he’s still spoiling you way too much. You reign it down though, because you don’t want to leave this comfortable place; you don’t want him to push you away again. “Nagisa! You’re so stubborn.”

“Why do you keep asking, then? That means you’re stubborn, too.”

“You’re right,” you agree, and turn your head a little, pressing your nose into the crook of his neck. You feel one of his hands settle in your hair, and you smile. “I’ll … I’ll get you to tell me, eventually. You know I will. It’s a promise!”

“Is it? I don’t recall promises being able to be made one-sidedly.”

You laugh against him. “It’s a promise to … _myself_ , then.”

You know he’s rolling his eyes, but when he kisses you on the forehead and says, “I’ll wait for you to figure it out, then,” your mind is spinning and your stomach is doing flips, but you know that you will. You will definitely figure it out.

Maybe Nagisa spoils you way too much.

But you have a lifetime to pay him back.


End file.
